Denholme fitness drive paying off

Denholme United maintained their flawless start in the Haslem Sheppard Halifax AFL’s first division with a 3-1 home win over Ryburn United Reserves.

It was one of only four league matches to go ahead with many AFL sides involved in the district cup.

Victory over the third-placed visitors gave Denholme their sixth straight win and all the other sides in the section have now dropped at least six points.

Jack Harrison, with 12 goals in his first five games, drew a blank but centre half Richard Wear, central midfielder Danny Moralee and frontrunner Michael Midgley were on target with John Wadsworth the Ryburn scorer.

Denholme club stalwart Mick O’Connor, who has handed over control of the team to Stevie George, said Ryburn had beaten them twice last season, finally scuppering their promotion hopes.

The Foster Park side finished third but beat eventual champions Shelf FC, who went up with a Sowerby Bridge side who are also proving themselves in the Premier this summer.

The aim is to get promotion this time and O’Connor puts Denholme’s flying start down to summer fitness training.

“We are blowing teams away in the last 15 minutes,” he said.

“The signs are good and the club is buzzing but we are only six games in and that is less than a third of the season gone.”

The three Division Two matches all resulted in home wins for sides in the lower reaches of the table.

Jake Farrar got the only goal of the game for Midgley United Reserves at home to Shelf United Reserves.

Northowram Reserves made it two wins in eight days with a 6-1 home success against Greetland Reserves while Alex Haggerty struck five times in Sowerby United Reserves’ 6-4 success over AFC Crossley’s Reserves.